Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Michigan Media Availability
Saturday, June 7, 2025

Ryan Blaney, driver of the No. 12 Menards/Knauf Ford Mustang Dark Horse, is coming off his first victory of the season last week at Nashville Superspeedway. Blaney stopped by the infield media center at Michigan International Speedway this morning to talk about that win and his hopes for making it two straight this weekend.

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Knauf Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THE ATMOSPHERE TO BE LIKE IN MEXICO NEXT WEEK? “I think the atmosphere is gonna be fantastic. Myself, Chase, Suarez and C Bell went down there a couple months ago and that was one of the biggest things I noticed about it was every single media member that was there at the press conference, all the fans walking around, they were very excited for us to come this summer, so that part of it I’m really looking forward to. They were very welcoming. You never really know what kind of welcome you’re gonna get when you go to a new place anywhere in general, so I think seeing their excitement really makes us feel good about the fact they’re excited for us to come down and put on a good show. I think it’s gonna be a great hit. I’m really excited to get there next week and it should be a fun one. It should be good.”

DO YOU THINK THE SIMULATOR HAS BEEN ACCURATE FOR THAT TRACK? “Yeah, I think it’s been pretty accurate. I was in it a couple weeks ago. I’ll go in it again this upcoming week and walking around it, when we went down there, they were tearing down stuff from a big music festival they did, but everyone showing us around the track and saying, ‘this is how we’re gonna kind of lay it out,’ and, honestly, they asked us about some wall placements and things like that. The four of us just talked it out and gave them some suggestions, but I feel like when I was in the sim it was pretty accurate to what they told me it’s gonna be, so that part is nice. You never fully know, but they just do the best job they can with the info they get and applying it to the sim, so I feel like it’s gonna be pretty accurate. We’ll find out when we get there, but I think it’s gonna be pretty close.”

HOW WILL THE COURSE RACE? “I think it will race really well, honestly. I think there’s a lot of passing zones obviously into turn one. Down the long frontstretch is gonna be one. Into turn four. There’s like a flowy esses section that I don’t know if you’ll see a lot of passing there, just as a normal ess carrying speed, but then there’s another braking zone into the stadium, that right-hander that I think you’re gonna see some moves, and then in the stadium there’s a really, really tight left-hander. It’s super tight and it requires a big arc to run it properly, but you’re gonna have guys kind of short cut it and dive in there, almost like the new Roval turn. It’s kind of set up like that with that angle to me, where you saw a lot of guys short it and send it in there, so there’s at least four and then we always find funky ones through there to try to catch people by surprise, so I think it’s gonna race very well. I like the track layout. I think they did a really good job on it. It has all different aspects from high-speed straightaways, really heavy braking zones, flowy sections, and then like your really slow stadium section. I think it has all pieces of road courses that we run are kind of mashed into one, so I think it looks like a great racetrack.”

IS IT DIFFERENT NOW PREPARING FOR TRACKS LIKE MICHIGAN AND POCONO SINCE YOU ONLY GO THERE ONCE A YEAR AS OPPOSED TO BEFORE? “For me, it’s business as usual preparing for every week. You might not have a race or two more that you kind of used to get a couple shots at Pocono and a couple shots here at Michigan, like you said, and now it’s one, so the data you get when we go to Pocono in a couple weeks is gonna be pretty important because you get one shot at everyone, but we take pieces from everywhere and apply them the best that we can. Do I wish we went to Pocono twice and Michigan twice? I could go either way. I like both of them a lot. I personally thought the doubleheader weekend we had one year at Pocono was really good. I really liked it. It was a little bit shorter race, but you get two Cup races and I think they filled it up with Xfinity and Trucks and possibly even ARCA that weekend, so you could see five races. That’s just part of it. You plan as best you can and you gather intel the best you can for when you go to places that are fairly similar.”

HOW HAS THE STRATEGY CHANGED FOR YOU GUYS AFTER THE WIN? “It’s really nothing different. We approach every week trying to win the race and no matter what spot you’re in, whether you’re not locked in on wins or you are. We did a great job last week of finally closing one out and you just try to do it again. A lot of people talk about that. Is there a mindset change when you win and you get locked in? I’ve never really believed that. I’ve always, to me at least and our group, it’s just we prepare every week like you’re trying to win the race, whether you’ve won one, zero or five it’s the same thing. And I don’t think you lay up anymore if you don’t have a win or you have a win or you don’t get more aggressive in these situations, unless it’s like down to maybe a couple races at the end and you have to win to get in – maybe you change some stuff up – but our group we’ve just always kind of tried to be as consistent as we can and try to do the best thing for our team and make the best decisions at the time no matter what spot you’re in.”

IS THERE ANY OTHER TRACK YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE NASCAR RACE ON? “I applaud NASCAR for getting bold and going to some places new, like trying the street course at Chicago, wanting to go international with Mexico. I was a big advocate for pushing like, ‘we’ve got to get international somewhere.’ Whether that was Mexico, Canada, wherever we could go. Where else would I like to see them go? I don’t know. They’ve proven that they can kind of do it anywhere if you put the resources and the time in it. You can make a street course. You can go to different road courses that are already existing. Maybe even some tracks that we used to go to that we don’t go to anymore like a Chicago – the Joliet racetrack. My name is in the bucket for that. I’d like to see that come back because I think it would be a great racetrack. It always was. They are God. They can choose where they go. They set the schedule. They can work with these cities and things like that to figure out where can we bring our show pretty much to a city near you. I think they can do it. I don’t know all of the technical insights. I’m sure it’s hell. I just go where they tell me to go and I race, but I’d love to personally, if we’re naming places, I’d love to see Joliet come back.”

IF YOU COULD STEAL A STAGE WIN AND GET THOSE PLAYOFF POINTS, ARE YOU FLEXIBILE ENOUGH TO DO THAT WITH YOUR SITUATION? “Yeah, it’s all situational. We’ve done that before in a spot that we’ve already won a race or not, and it kind of depends. We’ve always looked at it as, ‘OK, if you’re running 15th and it’s funky caution to where it’s gonna be a few laps to the end can you get the lead and can you get a stage point? You’re gonna start in the back, but I don’t know if we have a car to win, so let’s get all we can and get 10 points and get a playoff point.’ Or on the other side of that, if you think your car can win the race and you get one of those, maybe you just want to keep track position and cycle back to the lead after the caution. In the talks Jonathan and I have always had we talk extensively about the spot we’re in and do we think we can win the race or not, and that really weighs a big factor in it and your decision-making because sometimes you don’t want to get buried if you think you have the best car out there. Maybe you do flip the stage, but if you think the best you’re gonna do is 10th all day, ‘hey, maybe let’s grab all the points we can if that opportunity comes up.’ So, it’s a lot of situational things that he and I try to prepare for and make calls about in the moment.”

IS THERE A SENSE OF RELIEF AFTER WINNING LAST WEEK? “I think it was more of a weight off our shoulders just because we’ve been so good this year and feel like we just haven’t been able to get anything going our way. I feel like we’ve been in contention to win a few of them and a few of those that we thought we could be in contention to win we didn’t even finish, so I feel like that was a huge relief of like, ‘Man, we finally got over this hurdle of our cars are really good.’ It was nice to just finally put a whole night together. Nothing silly happened. It just played out normally and the fastest car won the race and we just happened to be that car, so I think just the ups and downs of the year that we had, it was definitely a huge sense of relief and my guys deserved it. I was happy for my guys because they didn’t change their attitude one bit through the down times of the year. They’ve just always prepared every single week like the people that they are and knowing that we can go win the race any week, so that was nice that it was like, ‘Alright, finally nothing happened.’ We did our job great. Nothing silly played out and we were able to bring it home, so that part was nice I think mainly for that reason – because of all the ups and downs that we’ve had throughout the year.”

IN YOUR MIND WHAT IS THE LINE BETWEEN AGGRESSIVE, CLEAN DRIVING AND RECKLESS DRIVING. AND DO YOU THINK THE ATTENTION HOCEVAR HAS BEEN GETTING IS GOOD FOR THE SPORT? “Everyone’s line is different. I can’t really speak for anybody else. My father raised me. He raced for a long time, so I had that going for me that he was able to teach me the do’s and don’ts. I’ve been chewed out a lot when I was younger for doing the wrong thing – at being overly aggressive and costing somebody else. My dad chewed my ass out when I did that. I did it a few times in late models when I was like 13 and he said it right. He set the line. He said, ‘This is wrong. You do not race this way. This is just how it is.’ It was one of those situations where I’m racing someone hard and I made a mistake. I slipped up and I spun him out. It wasn’t intentional, but even those mistakes dad would really make me clean up right away. That’s just how his dad raised him. I guess in my mind, hard racing is fantastic. Everyone races hard. Contact is going to happen. I think it’s an issue if it happens repetitively, like a lot. I think that’s when it starts becoming an issue. It’s like, ‘Do you learn from your mistakes?’ You can say you’re sorry all you want, but if you don’t learn from them and make a change, then everyone thinks you’re lying and you don’t feel sorry about that. Two guys are racing and they’re bumping and whatever, but, to me, over the line is if you get run over in the rear bumper and you get spun out and wrecked, then you have a brake pedal. You ran into that guy. I’ve read some stuff this week and people are like, ‘Well, Stenhouse could have cut him a break.’ I’m like, ‘How can Stenhouse cut him a break?’ I don’t understand. I think the 77 could have cut him a break if you’re gonna talk about breaks. I don’t even think that situation was cutting somebody a break. That was just getting run over, so, hey, he’s a young guy. All of us have been young. We’ve all been aggressive. Everyone has a heavy right foot when they get going and that’s good. I think he’s a very, very talented race car driver. He’s one of the best guys out there. It’s hard to teach speed. I think he just has to refine a little bit of what he does. I don’t think he has to change who he is because this is what got him here, but I think he’s got to possibly think of some situations that he’s been in and just try to learn from them. That’s really all you can do, so I don’t really critique anybody. I’m not critiquing him at all. That’s just my stance on it is when guys keep spinning off the front of your bumper that becomes an issue. I’m not a huge fan of that. I’ve been a part of it. I got turned at Atlanta getting run into from behind. It’s like, ‘How many times are you gonna keep doing this until you learn?’ So, we’ll see.”

THE IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT IS GOING TO START SOON. DO YOU THINK GUYS WILL PAY ATTENTION TO THAT ONCE IT STARTS AND COULD IT DEVELOP INTO SOMETHING MORE? “It could. It definitely could. I think it’s a unique thing to have in the middle of the year. It’s definitely gonna be something on people’s minds starting this week. The qualifiers are this week and it goes for three weeks, and then we get going. I think it’s in the back of people’s minds. I wasn’t sitting around this week like, ‘It’s in-season tournament time.’ You just try to run the best you can and then when I think you get into that five-week stretch of the tournament, you’re gonna be aware of who you’re racing like, ‘Who am I up against this week?’ You’re definitely gonna be aware of that because there is a lot of money and pride if you win the thing. It’s like a five-week All-Star Race, so you’re always gonna be thinking about that. You could go the easy route and say, ‘If I just win all five races, I’m gonna beat everybody and win the deal.’ I guess that’s a mindset you can have for sure, but you’re gonna have teams thinking about it in the back of their head. Are they gonna jeopardize their race because of that? No, I don’t think so, but it’s definitely something we’re gonna think about through those five weeks and honestly these next three of seeding yourself. It’s like the March Madness bracket. You want to do well to seed yourself against an easier opponent, but it could be big. It could grow. I think it’s a great idea. Why not try it? You’re still gonna have racing, it’s just gonna be a race within the race between all the guys.”

YOU COULD SEE UPSETS AND HAVE LOWER SEEDS GO THROUGH. “You have that all the time. The first one is in Atlanta, so you’re gonna see some upsets there. You could see some big upsets. They knew what they were doing. And then Chicago, so you could see some big upsets in the first couple. I think that makes for drama and it makes for that, so you could see the Cinderella March Madness moments. That’s what we all grew up watching and you’re gonna have it here.”

THE SCHEDULE IS PRETTY DIVERSE THE NEXT SIX WEEKS. DO YOU LIKE THE DIVERSITY? “Yeah, I like it. It’s part of the schedule. You look at every week and understand that you’ve got some things coming up. I think the road courses are gonna be big. It’s gonna tell you a huge tale of where you’re sitting and you better be ready because there’s a lot of them coming up from road courses and street courses and things like that. We’ve only had one road course to start the year. What have teams learned from COTA and how are they gonna be better at Mexico and Chicago and Sonoma? You have a big variation of them, so it’s a fun part of the schedule where you’re going to very different places each week, and I think teams really enjoy that – at least I enjoy it because it really switches it up and keeps it fresh. It can also be frustrating if you’re not very good at those places. You could have a stretch of some bad weeks. Hopefully, we’re not on that boat, but I like this part of the schedule. There’s a lot of different things going on this summer.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JUNE 7, 2025

 Daniel Suarez, driver of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Michigan International Speedway.

I actually bought translation headphones so I can understand next week, but how much of that have you really been helping everyone in real life figure out what’s going on next week?

“In real life, none, really. Only my group of people, you know, my mechanics and stuff.

It’s going to be fun. I give a lot of credit to NASCAR for bringing these kind of ideas, you know, to do. When they came to me and they said – hey, are you up to this idea of teaching a few guys Spanish classes, terms and things like that. At first, I thought — man, I don’t know if this is going to work out. Like, I don’t think this is going to be funny. And honestly, it turned out amazing. I give a lot of credit to NASCAR for trying all these different things. I think people are liking it. Drivers are embracing it. And, obviously, I’m having fun with it. I’m the one teaching the language, so for the first time, I feel like I’m in my zone, so that’s good.”

Obviously, there’s familiarity with the racetrack in New Mexico City, but with the ties with Max, have you talked to him or has he talked to you about that track? I know it’s totally different cars, but I didn’t know if there was any communication in regards to Mexico…

“You know, we have talked about it in the past. He talked to me about how low downforce it is. Obviously, those cars have very low downforce, so how much low downforce they make in Mexico City because of the altitude.

Actually, in Mexico City, they bring the same package as Monaco, which is kind of crazy to me. So we had some of those conversations in the past. And, you know, this is the part that is actually very interesting, is that a lot of people think that I’ve been racing that layout for a very long time. And actually, I’ve never been on that layout in my life. I have won at that race track, but in the overall configuration, never on the road course configuration. I know maybe 50%, maybe 40-50%, of the layout. But the stadium I’ve never been to in my life. Corner four, I’ve never been on.

I think it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a challenge for everyone. And also, you know, something else that I saw is that in Formula 1, through the esses, they go wide open when they’re low on fuel in the soft tire. We’re going in second gear, so it’s quite different. I don’t know if I can get a lot of advice from Max or someone that has run Formula 1 cars there before.”

Obviously the forecast can change, but it looks like rain throughout the next week at Mexico. With all the other challenges, what might that course be like with rain? “Yeah, a few people from Mexico City, they sent me a picture. I would like to show it to you guys because I think it’s very funny. There was a lot of rain, and there is a part of the city that is actually underwater. They have like a big (inaudible) of myself, and I’m underwater. That was very funny.

(showing photo) This is under the tunnel part in Mexico because they had a lot of rain last week. It’s fine now. That was during the rain. But there is a guy there with a little boat, and my face and my car is there. I thought it was very funny.

But anyway, yeah, the forecast can change. Listen, if it rains, obviously it’s a road course, so we’re going to be fine. It’s just one more equation into the race. Regardless of what happens, I think it’s going to be good. We’ll find out, but we’ll be ready. There have been races there in the past with rain, so it should be fine. But hopefully it doesn’t. Hopefully we’re racing in the dry. If it rains, hopefully it’s not a lot. I think the last time I saw the forecast, it was like 50% or something like that. There is a chance that it can go either way.”

(No mic…_)

“Honestly, I have never been in Mexico City where there is that kind of rain. I’m sure it has happened, but I have never seen it. So we’ll see, but I hope not. They knew NASCAR was coming, so they said – hey, let’s throw some rain in there (laughs)”.

What is going to be your number one recommendation for food next week in Mexico?

“You know, actually, what I would like to do for you guys, I would like to put together a list of five places… five good local places for you guys to try. Tacos, I don’t know if you guys are into seafood or not, but there is an area that they do amazing seafood from the coast of Acapulco.

Actually, as soon as I land, I’m going to go there on Tuesday. As soon as I land there, I already talked to Julia, we’re going to go straight to this seafood place. This seafood place there has been around for like 60 years, and they are like the distributors of seafood in a big part of the city. It’s amazing. I’m going to put a list for you guys together, and I will share it with you guys somehow. There is a couple of good taco places around. I’m going to take my team on Thursday night to one of the taco places. So, yeah, there is a few places out there.”

There is a lot of diversity in the Cup Series schedule over the next six weeks – two road courses, a street course, a monster mile, and a hybrid superspeedway. Do you think that those are opportunities for you to not only get a win, but execute yourself as a contender for a championship?

“Yeah, yeah. I think, to be quite honest with you right now, my main focus is in the next two weeks. Like right now, I’m trying not to think about Mexico too much because we’re here in Michigan. We’re far away. But my main focus is in the next two weeks. I know that we race Pocono after Mexico, and after that, I don’t even know what is next. I’ve been so focused in the next few weeks.

So, yeah, we have to just try to think one week at a time. There is definitely a lot of opportunities coming up. We have to take one step at a time and try to execute. I think that as a group at Trackhouse, we’ve been finding more speed lately. That has been shown with the No. 1 car winning in Charlotte. A couple months ago, we were not where we are right now. So definitely, we’re heading in the right direction.”

Next week in Mexico, they’ll have a podium for all the top-three finishers. Obviously that’s something that’s not typically done at Cup and Xfinity. What’s your thoughts about that? If you’re not the winner and if you finish second or third, would that be comfortable to be up there in a situation like that to be so close to winning and not? What would that be like because it’s not the culture in the Cup and Xfinity series?

“Yeah, that’s a very good question. Honestly, when they told me about it a while back, like six months ago at the time they were already considering it, they were not doing it. I thought — man, it could be a good idea. If you think about it, we are pretty much the only sport that does it like this. The Olympics… everything has a podium. Sometimes the culture can be extremely different and I don’t hate it. I just don’t hate it because people are used to doing things a certain way. The promoters, they know what they’re doing. They know what their audience likes. So I don’t hate it, especially because the way that it’s going to be in the middle of the stadium. I think that area is super beautiful. There’s going to be 30,000 people watching the podium.. 15,000 on each side. I think that’s going to be huge. Definitely something different for us. We are going to feel a little bit different. But at the same time, it’s not the first time we’ve done it. Actually, we did it in L.A., at the Coliseum. Just something different. I don’t see it as a negative. I see it as something that we have to adapt to a culture that is different to ours.”

(No mic…)

“It all depends how the race goes. It depends how I use my car. If my car was the fastest the entire weekend and I finished second, I’m going to be very pissed off. But if my car was average and I managed and we executed an amazing race and we finished second, it all depends. It all depends.

But overall, listen, I’m super excited, regardless of what happens on Sunday. I’m super excited for the event. I’m super excited to live the moment because the first time is going to only happen once.

I’m really trying to be as present as possible; enjoy the moment and try to execute the best possible weekend that we can. We know that we are capable of winning the race, but that’s not the goal. The goal is the execution of the entire weekend, and hopefully the win is the result of the execution part.”

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Toyota GAZOO Racing – Erik Jones
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

BROOKLYN, Mich. (June 7, 2025) – LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver Erik Jones was made available to the media on Saturday prior to this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

ERIK JONES, No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

Tell us a little bit about your foundation event and what it meant to you to be able to host that here in Michigan.

“Yeah, we’ve been doing a clay shoot the last few years in Charlotte and thought it was time to maybe move and do something different, and brought it up here to Dryden, Michigan, which many of you probably don’t know. It’s a little bit north of here and there’s a nice little huntsman club up there that has a clay course and does a bunch of other stuff. We had our event there yesterday and had great good turnout – had about 70, 80 people and raised some good money. Don’t have a final number from it, yet but yeah, it was a lot of fun. Super cool to have it all in Michigan. A lot of different crowd than what we had in Charlotte – a lot of people I’ve known for a long time, so that was neat to have an event for them up here. I’m just happy with the turnout had had good time.”

What is it about Michigan International Speedway that fits you well and do you feel like the expectations are higher this weekend for you and the team?

“Yeah, I mean the second part, I think expectations definitely higher. I think last year, we didn’t really know, we were not in a not in a great spot. We were just trying to have a good day. This year, I feel like top-10, well at least for me, not sure how everyone else feels but top-10s (are) definitely the expectation for me. Points-wise here, I don’t know, this car is way different here than the old car. We were kind of hit-or-miss in the last generation of car here. We had some good days, had some bad days. This car, I feel like every time, we’ve been pretty good. I feel like it’s more of a drafting type of race. There’s some handling that comes into play and you do need to have your car driving well, and it has to have some speed. But the way you kind of set up your passes and make your runs, you have to be pretty careful and make some good choices on restarts – put yourself kind of in a good position, have a good strategy. I feel like the last couple years, we’ve done really well playing strategy and getting ourselves up front towards the end (of the race). So, I feel like the racing is way different in this generation. Like I said, it’s more of a (pause), it’s not a speedway race, but it’s much closer to the speedway race than it used to be.”

Is there something you’re attributing the recent good finishes to?

“I don’t know that it’s one thing. I think we struggled a little bit at the start of the year, we had some days that should have been better early on in the year and we just didn’t put it all together between either mistakes I made, mistakes the pit crew, made (a) bad call, had something maybe not go right, got caught in a wreck and we saw the No. 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) have some speed too there, so we knew it was in the car. Then, we kind of had some glimmers of hope. We put together a really good race at Texas and then going back a few weeks ago, starting to put some better races together. So Nashville was really the first one that (pause), everybody just did a good job. I feel like I didn’t make mistakes, it felt like the pit crew did a good job. I think they were eighth overall on the day, so their best day by a long shot. We qualified good enough to be up front. So, everything was finally maximized and took advantage of the car we had. I think this mile-and-a-half stuff is where, at least for now, kind of our bread and butter is that. We have to execute on that. We can’t let those days slip by that we can get these good points days. I think it’ll be the same tomorrow. Just got to put it all together.”

Does LEGACY MOTOR CLUB have a game plan on where you want to be now and in a year or so?

“I think we’ve had a timeline the last couple of years and where we want to be as a team. I think that’s probably changed a little bit with last year and the struggles we had, but this year, we’re more on track to be where we want to be. Obviously, the end goal for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB is to be a championship team, right? There’s no other goal than that and obviously, there’s a lot of teams with that goal. But, becoming independent and not having the alliance, that was kind of a step number one, to say ‘look, we want to do this on our own and build this into a top tier program.’ So, it’s a long way to get there, and we have a lot of work to do to get there. We probably should win a race first, but you know the goals are there, and that’s a few years down the road, but I feel like where our performance is at this moment, winning a race in the next 365 days is probably goal number one.”

What was going through your mind in the incident with the No. 20 car last weekend?

“Obviously, I got to the bottom and he (Christopher Bell) got into me once, and I’m like, ‘okay.’ I kind of just assumed now he knows I’m down here, so he’ll just give me the room. And then, he hit us again, so okay, and now I’m just going to stay in here, I’m just not going to lift. After that, I mean, I was like, ‘well, if you just come down again, you’re going to spin out.’ I haven’t talked to (Christopher) Bell. He’s made it known through the grapevine that he felt that it wasn’t my fault, so I didn’t I really want to bring it back up again with him, because like, I don’t really want to wreck you, and I don’t think he wanted to be wrecked either, so it was just one of those racing situations. Yeah, know it was a weird deal, right? He was three-wide and it looked like the No. 22 (Joey Logano) kind of pushed him down the first time and then, I think he probably just got to the where he was caught off guard, getting shoved down and then stuck in the middle and was trying to figure out where to go and ran out of race track. It’s pretty narrow, right? Nashville is not super wide, it’s not like here (Michigan), but yeah, it’s kind of unfortunate. Obviously, he’s a Toyota car, so I don’t really want to wreck anybody, but especially another Toyota, but you know, just one of those weird racing situations it felt like.”

What are your overall expectations going into the Mexico City event next weekend?

“Yeah, it’s going to be interesting. I mean, it’s going to definitely be a lot of work to just get down there. We’ve raced out of the country before in Canada years ago with the Trucks and it was okay. It wasn’t a bad experience in any way, it’s pretty easy. It’s a little bit different now here with the travel, but the track I think is good. It’s pretty unique. There’s some really high speed stuff, some really slow stuff in that stadium section is like 30 mph. So, there’s going to probably be some chaos down there. Overall, it’s hard to put judgment on it because I haven’t done it, so I don’t want to say good or bad. We’re racing (at) a new venue, out of the country. I think the crowd is going to be huge from talking to a handful of people. I don’t know, it’s a little bit hard. Just get there, do it once and see how it goes. To be honest, the travel’s a little overwhelming. I’m not a guy that is super excited about that part of it, but the race, I am looking forward to.”

What makes you so I guess consistent at Pocono Raceway?

“Yeah, I don’t know. Pocono has always been one of my favorite tracks. I went there when I was really young in ARCA. You could race there at 16 (years old), and I did that. I’ve just been going there a long time, have a lot of experience number one, but number two, it’s just a place I was super comfortable at right off the bat. I felt like I understood early kind of how to make speed there. I feel like everybody approaches that track a little bit differently and how they want their car to drive and how they want to make speed there and you know, I kind of have the way that I like to do it and felt like it’s worked for me kind of in everything, Xfinity and Trucks, Cup, ARCA, all of it. I think that’s helped a lot. I feel like this strategy has always worked super well there for me where we end up front. Yeah I think some guys probably aren’t overly comfortable going there with the track and how it drives, but it’s a place that I’ve just always (pause), I think you have those few tracks that you go to that you really like and for me, there’s a few of them and Pocono is on that list for sure.”

Do you really think LEGACY MOTOR CLUB needs to be winning races before potential team expansion would take place?

“At the end of the day, it isn’t my race team. I just drive. But yeah, I would love to see the Cup program be successful and up and going first, 100%. But, that’s my focus, right? I’m the driver of the Cup car and want to see that do well, and I want to run well, so you know, I don’t want to speak to his plans and honestly, I don’t know what Jimmie (Johnson)’s plans are on some of that stuff either. I think he’s done (pause), in the last eight months, we’ve done a great job on the Cup side of things getting to where we want to be. In this moment, we still have work to do going forward to continue this progress and even to stay where we’re currently at. I would definitely love the focus to be on the Cup car, but again, I don’t own the team, and I don’t make those decisions.”

About Toyota

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NASCAR CUP SERIES
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JUNE 7, 2025

 Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at his home track of Michigan International Speedway.

Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) talked on SiriusXM this week saying that you’ve reached out and you guys are in a good spot now. What was that conversation like? What did you feel like you needed to reach out about and where do things stand between you guys now?

“Yeah, I mean it was productive. You know, me and him both have the reputation, I guess, of being aggressive at times and everything. So at that one point, we both reminded each other that even with those reputations, we’ve raced each other very well together, right? It clashes together. So, yeah, I mean we’ve had no issues before, as he had said, and I feel like we’ve had a decent relationship leading up to this.

So, yeah, I thought it was productive and, based off his comments, I felt like it was received productive.”

When you look at the banking of this track and the track surface specifically, what makes this track so unique?

“Yeah, I mean the straightaways are just so long; the corners are so long, or, you know, sweeping. This track in general is just very large. The whole thing feels banked the same all the way around. You just carry so much speed, especially here in a minute. We’re going to go really easy wide open in the Trucks and potentially easy wide open in Cup qualifying, especially how cold it is here. So, yeah, it’s obviously very unique, but I think it’ll eventually start aging even more that you can carry a lot of speed with not a lot grip.”

Carson, are you the new ‘Intimidator’ and do you feel comfortable with that characterization?

“I mean, if I win seven championships… But, you know, if you’re going to get compared to one guy, that’s the guy, endorsements from Dale Jr. and everybody. But I don’t think I’m ‘new’ anything, you know, I think I’m ‘new’ me. Everything about me is real… like I’m not trying to play a part, try to fit a role or trying to pretend to be anybody. But, you know, it’s for everybody else to decide on what they get and perceive of me. I know who I am and, you know, ultimately, I want to be known as me and sometimes that leads to comparisons.”

Coming at the heels of the last three or four races and your 10th place finish last year at MIS, it seems like you’re on a roll. Do you really feel like you’re in a really good place right now as you march toward the playoffs?

“Yeah, our cars are just continuing to get faster obviously. It’s been a lot of fun for me to see how quick Spire can grow and how quick we can get going. It’s just a lot of fun that it’s just continuous progression, right? If it’s one step backwards, we just take two steps forward, and that’s been fun that we can have quick turnarounds and quick improvements. You see little teams, they’ll circle their few tracks a year that they can run good at, and, you know, we’re circling the few tracks that we need to completely wholesale. We don’t really have that too big of a weak spot in our game right now that, you know, we can show up any given week and run really good. We just want to figure out how to be great at all these places.”

In your mind, what’s the line between aggressive, clean driving and reckless driving?

“Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think the line is when it’s, you know, blatantly intentional versus just racing. Obviously, we make a thousand decisions a race, right? And sometimes the only decisions you see, especially when you’re not leading, in front or on TV, the only decisions you see is the bad ones because that causes a yellow and that raises a lot of tension. So, I think every racecar driver kind of realizes that at times. Intensity will just pick up, especially with how hard it is to pass or whatever. The intensity just starts picking up at certain tracks. I think everybody can see the line, especially depending on how the race goes. That kind of dictates how aggressive everybody’s being, and that’s sometimes when you start seeing mistakes or, you know, too much aggression.”

When you did drop back to 30th in points after Darlington, did you and Luke (Lambert) kind of sit down and say — okay, what do we have to do to forge our way forward?

“I mean, yes, but it wasn’t like we were 30th in points because we were slow. It was 30th in points because we had some fuel pumps, some blown tires, some motors, some other parts we couldn’t handle. So it was just more of like realizing — hey, we’re 30th in points… not off speed, but just off a lot of freak things or mechanical issues that we’ll fix. We have too good of parts, too good of motors, too good of people to not put it all together, and when it gets put all together, we’ll be right where we want to be. Weeks and speed like we’ve been having is exactly what we expected, or thought, or why we didn’t put our head down and reinvent the wheel when we didn’t need to.”

Do you guys have a strategy of getting into the playoffs on points if you don’t win?

“I mean, yes. Ultimately, you’re just trying to just finish as well as you can. We’ve gotten stage points a lot this year and that has really made the difference. I think without stage points, we’d be like 30th in points. But with stage points, we’re 17th right now. So yeah, honestly, we just got to keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll be in a decent spot or hopefully in a good spot. It’s not going to be a walk-off, you know, I think it’s going to be close all the way down the line just where we’re at in points, especially if somebody wins. But I think we’re up for the challenge.”

Even though you say there’s all these thousands of decisions that are made in a race that happen so quickly, the focus gets to be put on certain ones. This past week, was it an exhausting week or a distracting week in having to deal with one decision that was made in a split second?

“It sometimes can be. I think Jeff Dickerson has a really good line… number one is that if you’re explaining, you’re losing, right? And number two, he had always used the line of, if we’re sitting here explaining a situation or sitting there talking about it, we’re not getting faster. And I use that in this scenario, right? This the focus now. It’s not focus of, man, how do we beat the No. 12 car that’s won two championships, right? It’s, okay, how do we have this conversation with our team, this driver that we hit, all that stuff.

So, you know, that’s the difference… you just don’t want to have those conversations because you’re not getting faster with those conversations. Like, that’s what slows us down. It’s not everything else. That’s now what we’re focused on instead of just focused on just like — okay, how do we get 2.8 seconds faster in a whole race to win a race? So I think that was the biggest thing.”

Looking ahead to next week, how are you getting adjusted or what’s your plan to try to get adjusted to the higher elevations in Mexico City and prepare for that as an athlete?

“I don’t know. You know, I haven’t done a whole lot, so I’m hoping I’m okay when I get there. (laughs).

I think we get there Thursday. We’re actually running more road course prep than altitude prep. Aaron Zeigler has some radicals or whatever… some cars that we’ll drive on the road course and just get accustomed to that. I asked him, I was like — hey, I know you have these cars at this road course club. I was like, I’ve been just running nonstop on this F1 game, but I got to drive something real on a road course.”

How much do you consume all the stuff that’s being said about you when you’re at the center of attention like you were this week, whether it’s social media, fan sentiment, Sirius or anything like that? Are you paying attention? Are you looking at what’s being said?

“Yeah, I mean, slightly. I forgot that we didn’t win the race. I forgot who won for a minute.

But no, I mean, number one, it’s cool to just be talked about. Obviously, you want to be talked about maybe in a different light. But I mean, at least they’re talking, right? And I think that’s big for me. And, you know, you consume it… you see it all. You know, as Jeff Dickerson had mentioned before, he’s like, we’re trying to like round the edges. And then you have your like heroes texting you, just don’t change, right? He’s like, hold on, hold on… we need at least something a little different.

But yes, I mean, ultimately, it’s fun to obviously be in the news. I mean, it’s what I’ve dreamt of my whole life, which is just at least being a topic of conversation. Yes, I mean, it’s cool from that aspect. But you know, obviously, you want to be it when you just dominate a Cup race, and they can’t stop talking about. That’s probably ultimately the next goal. But, you know, it’s definitely fun to at least see it all or just see my face everywhere.

What’s it like to be back home coming off a second-place finish?

“Yeah, I mean if you’re going to have momentum going into any place or a good finish going into any place, going home is obviously the spot — home for Zeigler Auto Group, home for me. You know, for whatever reason, I think your crew guys or whatever works a little harder when they know it’s the home race. You feel like you just walk in with a little bit extra confidence. So when you’re already feeling good about it, I feel like that that’s just an extra boost.”

After your conversation with Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.), do you expect payback? And I guess in the same vein, when it comes to payback in NASCAR, if you had to pick, do you prefer the fists or the bumper?

“Number one, no.

And number two, I mean, they both hurt in some aspect.. one physically and one financially. So, I mean ultimately, it’s fun for fans.”

Is that a tough call to make, to call a competitor that you’ve maybe roughed up a little bit? What’s that like, emotionally, going into that kind of call?

“I mean, no, it’s not, at least it wasn’t when me and him talked. He owns a sprint car team, so he’s one of the first drivers I’ll go talk to just because I want to ask him about his sprint car team. So, you know, we’ve had that relationship, right? So, I mean, it’s not too hard to call. You just pick up the phone and call.

I don’t get nervous a whole lot or awkward… sometimes I am awkward, but I don’t get nervous or anything before those calls, especially when I feel like it’s warranted. You see these guys 38 weekends, so it’s either you call them or you see them here. It’s probably just easier if you just move that timeline up. That’s really the biggest thing.”

As a Michigan native, where would a win here, whether it be a Truck race or a Cup race, where would that rank among your career achievements of all the to win?

“Yeah, I mean, this is number one or would be number one if we can win here. We have two opportunities to do that, which would be — I don’t think I’d ever top this one, but if I was able to complete both. But just being able to win one of these would be super, super cool and mean a lot.

You know, somebody asked me earlier how much it would mean. I was like, man, I don’t know how to describe it in words, but I promise you when we win, you’ll see how much it means and hopefully we get a chance to show that.”

Nashville last weekend was your was your first top-10 on the non-superspeedway this season. You guys have had the speed all year but not the finishes. What does a weekend like last weekend do where you guys had the speed, put it all together and got the finish? What does that do for just confidence, morale, chemistry heading into the coming weekend?

“Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it’s points that we don’t feel like it was taken away finally. You know, a result that wasn’t taken away. It’s great to just finally at least have something to look at on Monday or Tuesday just for our guys alone. Our pit crew guys did a great job on a green-flag stop.

I feel like, a lot of times, we’ve been doing the right things and not getting the reward to at least just be happy or at least somewhat be like, okay, we did it, you know? So I think it’s just big from a confidence standpoint into this last little bit of a push to just be like — okay, like we finally reaped the reward of performing at a high caliber and a high level that we feel like we all can. So I think that’s just the biggest thing, it’s finally just like a sigh of relief for everybody.”

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.